More trees on the horizon for Vancouver!
Friends of Trees will be on Vancouver’s Westside on February 21st. You can plant with us and learn more about how we work with local communities to plant trees together, by visiting our volunteer page.
The Port of Vancouver USA is partnering with Friends of Trees Friends to grow the Vancouver urban tree canopy. We’ll be working with The Port to help plant trees across the city as part of their efforts to mitigate property development impacts. Thanks to this new agreement, FoT is aiming to increase the number of street trees it plants along the city’s right of ways – a.k.a. planting strips.
A mitigation tree is a wonky term used for a tree that is planted to replace one that’s been cut down elsewhere. Most cities require mitigation trees to be planted as a condition of development. Preferably, a tree is on the same property a tree was removed from but if this isn’t possible, there are other options: The City of Vancouver allows trees to be planted at other locations within city limits as a condition of removing trees. Paying into Vancouver’s Tree Fund is another option, though often more costly.
Many of these street trees that we’ll be planting are funded by The Port and will be of no cost to homeowners. The care and responsibility of these new trees will remain under stewardship of the adjacent property owner. FoT provides watering reminders and health checkups to help these trees thrive. FoT also offers ooze tubes to help make watering easy and convenient!
Because we entered this agreement nearly halfway through this year’s planting season, we’re offering FREE STREET TREES to all customers for our remaining neighborhood plantings now through March 2015. Starting next planting season, Friends of Trees will be offering free street trees to select neighborhoods throughout the city—a list that will change on an annual basis. Please help spread the news and stay posted for the release of next year’s free tree neighborhoods in early summer. From this moment forth, we’ll need more help than ever identifying planting locations and recruiting tree planters in Vancouver!
